Elections and Toilets

 

My son-in-law Vince replaced our malfunctioning toilet with a brand new one tonight, for which I'm very grateful (as you might imagine).

On a related note, there's an election coming up tomorrow. Ordinarily, in mid-term elections the party occupying the White House does badly. I have a feeling, though, that this time around the Democrats are going to do pretty well on a national level. That's not a hope or an offer to debate, just a semi-educated guess.

Whether you prefer the toilet or the urinal, please get out there to vote. Political offices are like toilets: They should be flushed often, or they'll start to stink. And no, it doesn't matter if they're number one or number two.

 

Looks like the Congressional Lavatory got another renovation.

 

Holy Hole, Batman

The short version is, a sinkhole opened up in my back yard. More disturbing, it was only a few feet from the side of my house.

Not to worry, though—it was just a small sinkhole. At least, until I got too close and my foot went through, making it a slightly larger small sinkhole.

"Dude, I had nothing to do with this."

There are two things you can do at a time like this: Fill it in, or dig it out. Why dig it out? Why, to find out why, and what; it’s called curiosity, people. Get some.

Also, there’s the fact that I still have a pile of broken brick bits from when I demolished my chimney, which actually stood about ten feet away. So I had a pile of something I needed to get rid of … and a hole. But what was the hole? Cue me, with a shovel.

The hole, I now believe, was a cesspit. That’s a temporary collection tank that looks similar to a well, except you do not want to dip a bucket into it. It’s designed to collect … um … stuff, from a home’s plumbing. When I was a kid, my dad had to periodically empty one at our rural home; it was about the same distance from that house, and also near the back door. Often they’re not sealed at the bottom, allowing liquid to eventually leach downward, while the … er … solid would build up and occasionally have to be emptied. Emptying is not fun. 

In addition to being the right location and size, it was lined with concrete except for a layer of bricks near the top, and I could see where a pipe once entered it from the direction of the house.

Oh, crap.

And you thought all the cesspits had moved to Washington, D.C.

On a related note, the home’s original outhouse (according to an old fire insurance map) was directly behind our garage, which was a carriage house at the time. The cesspit was further south, and the present sewer line further south still. The guy who dug up the sewer line to replace it missed the cesspit by maybe five feet ... talk about hitting a pothole.

Here’s my theory: Sometime in the past—decades ago—someone filled in the cesspit when they installed indoor plumbing (which they did badly, but that’s another story). Over the years a layer of grass, tree, and bush roots grew over it, but underneath the fill dirt began to settle, causing a cavity. Guess it should have flossed. The impact of me throwing all those bricks down when I demolished the chimney weakened it, which just goes to show how my home maintenance jobs turn into a sitcom-like string of unintended consequences.

This is what happens when I hang upside down to take a photo inside a cesspool. That's the fill dirt on the bottom, and for perspective you can make out a spider on the concrete wall. What it was eating down there, I have no idea.

Out of curiosity—and to free up room for the bitty brick bits—we began shoveling out what turned out to be heavy, wet, mostly clay fill. Yes, sometimes items are found in cases like this. There’s a whole science behind researching the contents of old outhouses, and garbology is the study of modern garbage; the phrase was coined by a guy going through Bob Dylan’s trash. I didn’t expect to find anything valuable, but I did expect to find something, such as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle we found buried in the old back yard sandbox.

A toy. Not a real turtle. Sheesh.

The thingy from the hole. Which, ironically, is the title of my new book.

First came a flowerpot, potting soil still inside. It was plastic, which dates the fill period to … sometime after they started making plastic flowerpots. Then came a really interesting item: Kind of a spool, possibly ceramic, with a hole through the middle. I’m thinking it’s a hollow ceramic spool. I’d guess it’s manufactured by a company called Superior, based on its markings, which say “Superior”.

 Call me Sherlock.

(After writing that, I sat down to do some research, code-named “Google”. It appears to be a ceramic insulator bushing spacer. I was so close! And get this: I found those things on sale on Etsy for seven and a half bucks. “Vintage Home Décor”, they call it.)

Now I just have to decide if I want to shovel out any more of that cesspit, which was more fun than watching politics on TV but all-too-similar. Maybe, as in politics, there's free stuff down there that was actually paid for by someone else.

Or maybe I can just keep digging, and start a survivalist bunker. That would fit the theme of everything going into the crapper.

The hole's covered on the left, with my new dirt pile on the right. Off to the far right you can see my "new" flowerpot.

Plumbing, Part 2: It Gets Worse

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

            Last week, I described how preparing to fix my home’s only toilet turned into a half day ordeal. The rest of the day went pretty much the way you’d expect:

            After staring at the instructions for half an hour and muttering to myself, I figured out how to get the new piece of toilet innards in. (At about that point my wife popped her head in, and I went on a ten minute diatribe that basically consisted of “Easy! They said it was easy!” along with some hysterical laughter.)

            The new piece had to be reconnected to the water line, and the instructions gave four different ways to do that, depending on the incoming line. Flared? Flanged? Screwed? Something was screwed, all right. (Later I would mispronounce the word “flanged” to the guy at the hardware store, even though I knew how to pronounce it. My head was that screwed—and nailed—by then.) My setup, I determined, was flanged.

            That took the “already installed” washer, which I’d thrown aside because it had deteriorated to a little ring of black pond scum. The rubber washer that came with the new parts, which took me ten minutes to separate from the other washer that came with the new parts, wouldn’t be necessary. Really?

            With the old washer back in, everything was complete. Right? By then I’d skipped over steps fourteen through seventeen and was desperately craving a beer, even though I hate beer. I headed downstairs to turn the water back on. Instantly the sound of the tank filling could be heard upstairs.

            At least, that was hopefully what the sound was. Running upstairs revealed that the toilet was indeed filling, and it even stopped when it was supposed to. I’d saved the day!

            Of course, there was also that water spraying out from under the toilet.

            It may seem like a good idea: Constantly cleaning your bathroom floor with a good, steady spray of water. In reality, I’ve learned that water spraying all over a room tends to end badly. I ran back downstairs to shut off the water. Then back upstairs to tighten the nut. Then back downstairs to turn on the water. Then back upstairs to get sprayed in the face, and tighten the nut more.

            The old rubber washer, built by Korean kids who are now Korean elders, just couldn’t handle the strain of being taken out, then put back in again.

            I ran back downstairs and turned off the valves, which also turned off the supply of water to my home’s heating system. One of the valves sprayed me in the face.

This was new.

            Apparently that fixture also had a rubber washer that couldn’t take the strain.

            By now I’d run up and down the stairs often enough to prepare for a marathon, my back was screaming in agony, and I’d started to wonder where that half bottle of vodka had gotten to that I stashed away somewhere after New Year’s, 2008. But I persevered, because when you gotta go, you gotta go, and my property’s outhouse disappeared a long time ago. I tried to tighten the nut again, and when that didn’t work I started going through the steps, one by one. Again.

            The dog, by then, had retreated into the living room and was lying on the couch, trying to be invisible. He began casting fearful looks in my direction when I wandered into the room, compulsively folding and unfolding the directions, clothes soaked and eyes wild.

            “I have to start over from scratch. Heh. It must be the washer inside. I gotta start all over. Ha. Ha ha. Hahahahahaha!!!!!!!”

            At which point the dog wisely left for wherever my wife was hiding.

            At the hardware store, the hardware guy patiently listened to my explanation of what I needed, which was peppered with a lot of “little round thing”, and “goes on the other thing for the stuff”, and a few words I can’t relate here. Finally I demonstrated on an actual model of a toilet, which I discovered was bolted to the wall when I tried to lift it to show him the bottom. It occurred to me later that an awfully lot of people must come in there, trying to describe the things they need for their stuff.

            But finally he understood. “We don’t have that.”

            Uh huh.

            What he did have was a little package of plastic pipe connector whatsits, which included a little plastic washer, which might or might not do the trick. “I’ll try it – why not? Also, do you have any whiskey?”

            Looks like I picked a bad decade to give up drinking.

            I completely disassembled the assembled assembly, reassembled it, added the new washer, and tromped downstairs, where the water spray soaked me until, ironically, I turned the water back on. Then the leak there stopped, and since that valve has to be on to supply the furnace, I figured it should be called even.

I heard the sound of rushing water. Edgar Allen Poe never wrote a more suspenseful moment.

            Upstairs, I discovered the toilet was working perfectly. Also, a little stream of water was wandering its way down the water line behind the toilet, onto a pile of wet towels. Absolutely nothing had changed since before the job started.

            The instructions say the connections holding all that goshdarnit inside the toilet, and hooking it to the water line, should be hand tightened only. I got a wrench. Crawling under the toilet, I cranked that water line as tight as it would go.

            The stream stopped. The dripping started. Drip. Drip. Drip. Right down the water line, in a way that made it impossible to catch in a container.

            And that’s why, if you should visit my home and have the unfortunate need for a bathroom run, you’ll find a towel wrapped around the line under my toilet, a towel that has to be replaced daily. Hey, it’s a lot less water than was going down the drain before I started.

            Besides, I know when I’m beaten.

The "new" toilet, along with the old flooring. If it ain't the seat, it's the foot.

plumbing horrors

We bought a bathroom sink last night, and already have a newer toilet waiting, thanks to my daughter and son-in-law. This morning we spent some time trying to figure out the maze of plumbing in the basement, which has resolved itself more or less into two different but interrelated systems, installed decades ago in an already standing house by two drunk bakers and their assistant, a trained monkey. (I'm kidding: The monkey wasn't trained.) Apparently they had a dozen extra valves they didn't know what to do with, so they just threw them in at random.

The plan: To turn off and drain the hot water heating system, remove the radiator, sink, and toilet from the bathroom, replace the already ripped-up bathroom carpet (seriously, whose idea was that?) with linoleum, then put them all back in again in working order. Then put all the old stuff out for spring cleanup a week from today.

Pray for us. Because we don't have a prayer.